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Support Your Favo(u)rite Web Site

So while we’re whiling our time away talking about the Best of 2005 and web links to various other Best Of Lists, this might be the perfect moment to note that the 2006 Bloggies are up and running. The nominees are chosen by YOU, the web surfers, and yes, YOU, the iJamming! reader, can nominate this site from the entry form here. I’m not sure exactly which category iJamming! falls into: it’s a shame there isn’t one for Best TransAtlantic Weblog or Best Music and Wine Weblog, in which case we’d probably win by default. Perhaps, if you’re feeling generous, you can nominate iJamming! for Best-kept-secret Weblog: this site is not as phenomenally popular as some of you might think. I don’t really care much for awards – nor the B word – but the very nature of the Bloggies means that editors inevitably ask their readers to nominate them. Besides, it would be nice to be recognized for all the hard work.

And you know it is hard work. Which is why I was most flattered and pleased that our Antipodean Pubber, Mick The Love God, deposited $100 in the iJamming! Paypal account as an annual contribution based on what he’d happily spend on Jamming! were it a print newspaper. (Read his thinking here.) Long-term readers may be aware that I went all last year without making a public request for donations, and those paypal and amazon boxes are VERY easy for you to ignore otherwise. But while you know I get a kick out of it, the truth is, I don’t have to be doing this.

No, I could be earning money selling these words to crappy music mags. I could certainly be selling my soul behind a desk at a major record label. I should be writing a book right now. I could be out skiing every spare moment of winter snow that I get now that I moved next door to a mountain. I should go traveling; I didn’t get on a plane last year. I ought to be spending more of my evenings with the wife and kids. I could be reading the hundreds of unopened books I keep accruing. I could be going to the movies like other so-called normal people. I could be watching TV, getting brain-damaged like the rest of the world. I could be surfing and reading YOUR web site if any of you actually ran them. (The exceptions among you know who you are.) Truth is, I spend at least 30 hours a week on this site – on top of the 30 hours a week I spend making sure I have an income. (And if you think those Google ads and occasional amazon links bring in anything even approaching chump change, think again.)

January might not be the ideal time to ask you for a donation but if it’s a good enough time for The Love God, it’s good enough for you. Your contribution will help pay for bandwidth, online hosting and maybe even for the reams of paper I still print my postings out on so as to edit the old-fashioned way – with a black pen – before launching them into cyber-space. You only have to click here. Or here. Think of the price of a pint you’d be spending if you were in a real pub rather than the iJamming! Pub, multiply it by the days of the week you spend here, multiply that by 50 or 52 weeks for the year – and if it seems like too much, think how much drink money you’re actually saving by staying home, divide the sum in half, deposit it in the iJamming! Paypal or amazon account, and agree that you got a bargain. Your contribution is not tax deductible but it does go to a good home. Thank you very much.

For a longer explanation of why you should Keep iJamming! Thriving, click here.

Discussion

Tony,
I will be nominating your site as my favorite…I will also be nominating Grow-A-Brain. These are the two sites I look at on a very regular basis and which I enjoy the most. I hope that your readership continues to grow in the new year. You deserve it. I am surprised to hear that your site is not more popular, and because of that I am going to send an email to everyone I know inviting them to the iJamming community. Hope it helps and hope you keep up the great work, it’s well worth it and I wish I had the time to do this sort of thing. Maybe this year I’ll find that time! Thanks for it again,
Tom

Thanks for the nomination; it’s great to know it’s one of the two key sites you visit.I didn’t mean to suggest that iJamming! is unpopular; I would consider it a ‘cult’ site. It’s just that don’t play the game of linking to 1000 other sites in the hope that they link to mine, don’t give away prizes, and have never been written up in the major media. But what matters is the percentage of people that visit who are loyal to it,and that number is satisfyingly high.
Stay well!

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Copyright Tony Fletcher 2000-2012. Other than short excerpts under standards of fair use for purpose of review or reference, content may not be copied and republished without written permission of author.